Maybe it was the gin.
Maybe it was the yawning emptiness inside of him that he couldn’t fill no matter how much he drank or how many women he slept with. Maybe it was the fact that when he’d talked to Lachlan about losing the person he loved most, he hadn’t been referring to Eloise. Or maybe it was a combination of all three.
Whatever the reason, Sterling leaned forward out of his chair, cupped Rosemary’s heart-shaped face in his hands, and kissed her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Brynne left forLondon the next morning and arrived in Grosvenor Square after dinner.
Stately and square, Weston’s town residence–hers as well, although she supposed she’d soon need to find new accommodations once Evie moved in–sat back from the tree-lined street behind a towering wrought iron gate, the freshly painted black matching the wooden shutters on the windows. It was three stories with an attic for the servants’ quarters, and the high-vaulted ceilings encased in marble tile were one of her favorite features. They loomed above her as she entered the foyer, her footsteps muffled by a thick Axminster rug in a repeating pattern of muted blues and grays.
This manor had always offered a comforting respite from the colorless isolation of Hawkridge Manor. There were paintings on the walls (most selected by her hand). Carpets on the floor. A bust of their grandfather, stern as ever, resting on a pedestal by the grand staircase. Glossy green ferns in glazed clay pots in the corners. It was a space meant to be lived in. And yet…and yet how much had sheactuallylived here?
Afternoon tea in the drawing room. Countless parties in the parlor. Piano recitals in the music room. Balls in the outdoor courtyard. She’d presided over all of them. Lady Brynne Weston, the perfect hostess. Renowned throughout thetonfor her charm, and wit, and grace.
But what would those same people say if they’d seen her chasing after a snake in the hall? Or juggling bubby pots in the kitchen? Or coaxing a baby goat (courtesy of Callum, little devil that he was) out of the bathtub?
In those moments, she’d wantedthis. Calm, quiet, elegant surroundings. Ceilings that didn’t leak and rooms that had real furniture in them. But as she turned in a circle and absorbed the silence–silence that suddenly felt far too stuffy and formal–she found herself missing the chaos.
Nostalgia, she thought as she made her way to the courtyard where the footman who greeted her at the door had said her brother was entertaining company.Just simple nostalgia.
After forcibly preventing herself from thinking about anything that had to do with Lachlan for the past year and a half, it was only to be expected that once those memories resurfaced, they’d shine with a rosier glow than before. Fondness had a way of attaching itself to the past, when in the present she’d be happy if she never saw another snake for as long as she lived.
“There you are!” Evie exclaimed, standing in a swirl of green muslin. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
An automatic smile laid claim to Brynne’s mouth as she gazed past her soon-to-be sister-in-law at the other guests occupying the shaded courtyard. Comprised of varying levels made from imported stone, it offered a view of Hyde Park through a living bamboo screen–also imported–and was decorated with a plethora of oversized tables and chairs to encourage lounging on a night exactly like this. Warm with a hint of crisp in the air and a sunset over the Thames that would make a poet weep.
In addition to Evie and Weston, who appeared more relaxed than she’d ever seen him with his cravat carelessly undone, his dark hair windswept and–was that arealsmile?–there was a bookishly handsome man wearing spectacles that Brynne did not recognize and woman who she’d never met but immediately knew.
Joanna Thorncroft. The secret, illegitimate daughter of her father and his American mistress. A mistress, if Lady Crowley could be believed, that the cold-hearted Marquess of Dorchester had been madly in love with.
If not for that affair, Joanna wouldn’t be sitting here.
Weston wouldn’t be engaged to Evie.
And Brynne wouldn’t have a half-sister.
Two sisters of a sort, she corrected as she abruptly found her arms filled with squealing Americans. Their enthusiastic hug caught her off guard, but after a half-second’s worth of hesitation, she responded in kind, tentatively at first, and then with a laughing enthusiasm that Evie and Joanna returned tenfold.
“Your brother came to his senses at last,” Evie grinned, holding out her left hand to reveal the ring that she and Joanna had crossed an ocean to pursue. Not with the intention of wearing it as a sign of her engagement–at the time, the Thorncrofts hadn’t even known the identity of Joanna’s birth father, let alone that Brynne and Weston existed–but it seemed fitting that it had ended up this way. It seemedright. A circle coming all the way around to its close.
“The ring is beautiful on you,” Brynne said sincerely. She looked over Evie’s shoulder. Met her brother’s pleased, proud gaze. “Congratulations.”
“I have a hundred questions,” Joanna chimed in, her blue eyes shining. As slender as Evie but half a head taller and with bright red hair instead of black, she must have resembled her mother as closely as Brynne resembled hers, for neither had inherited any defining characteristics from their shared father.
Which, in a way, also seemed right.
“I don’t know if I have a hundred answers, but I’ll do my best,” Brynne promised.
And over the course of the next three hours, she did.
The man with the spectacles, she learned shortly, was Joanna’s husband, Thomas Kincaid. A private investigator, he’d been hired by the Thorncroft sisters after they arrived in London without the vaguest clue of where to begin their search. During the course of his investigation, Kincaid found the ring…and so much more.
It was clear, just from the way he gazed at her, that the subdued, serious-minded detective was absolutely besotted with his bride, and Joanna was equally infatuated with her husband.
Likewise, so too were Weston and Evie enamored of each other.
Which left Brynne noticeably without a partner.
